Archive for March, 2010

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Sorry it’s been a while getting this last chapter out. So I moved to Palo Alto in January. For 3 weeks I was here working and getting settled in and writing a paper on series resistance in PERC cells. Then I went back to Australia for 3 weeks to finish up my experimental work, finish the supervision of my summer student, tie up loose ends with teaching and such.

I finished all my experimental work. I didn’t get a terribly good efficiency for my solar cell. The 16% one I made last year still holds the record for me. But I did get a lot of awesome pictures, and a few decent experiments out of it. Ok, cool texture photo:

I also had a lot of parties to attend One of the first was a farewell dinner & salsa party.

The next weekend we went camping. It was epic getting up there. Evatt was driving Yael and I up in his old-school camper van. The rear windscreen was crumbling off. It was raining. We stopped for dinner, and the restaurant we were in flooded. Started driving through the torrential downpour. The bottom of every hill had turned into a pond. We passed about 5 cars that had stalled in the water, we sprayed water over them as we blew by. Made it fairly close to the camp ground by about 11pm, tried to find a motel, failed, parked at the end of a street near some beach access and camped on the side of the road. Turns out there were still fishermen about, so they passed us leaving the beach sometime after midnight, drinking and laughing. Then passed us again going back to the beach around 4am. Wasn’t a terribly wonderful sleep. Made it to the campground the next morning, crashed on the beach. The rest of the trip was fairly good and uneventful.

Anna took me out to see a musical on my last Wednesday in Australia. We’d gone to see Wicked together a few months ago, and had tried to do so in Melbourne, so we’ve bonded over musicals. It was interesting, this one. Called “Spring Awakening”. I won’t forget it, anyways

BOS was my shout on my last Friday of work. It was a good one. I shouted the first case, tonnes of people were there again, then I think Evatt shouted a case, then Mark had to go get a third case (good thing the bottle shop isn’t far…), then it carried on to the Reg. Oh, I’m missing UNSW!

Saturday was my last full day in Sydney, so a bunch of us got together and went kayaking in Manly. It was an incredible day! Perfect weather, perfect friends, absolutely beautiful! You couldn’t ask for a better day! Made it so hard to leave. There were tears starting when we had to say goodbye.

When I got home, I had my last dinner in Mooramie house. Sarah, Andy, and Wolfgang came over to join Yael, Craig and I in an all-night LOTR marathon. We had been planning a marathon for a while, and it seemed a fitting thing to do on my last night. No wasting it with sleeping. Craig and Sarah made a tonne of LOTR food to go along with it as well. Their versions of Entwash, and lembas, and Craig made a Shelob cake (which I should find the picture of…).

In the morning, I finished packing, then Anna and Shonnie and Pat came by for breakfast. Anna and Shonnie had to head off to soccer then, and Pat took this photo of Yael and Craig and I outside Mooramie house just before we left for the airport:

We stopped by DP on the way to the airport so that I could say bye to all the soccer ladies before their game. There were more tears. Andy and Craig and Yael waited with me at the airport until I really had to go through security and board the plane. We were all pretty burnt out, not having slept, and being rather sad. We sat around drinking Boosts and hanging out, then we went to security, and there were a lot more tears when Yael and I said bye. She’s my Australian sister now, those guys were my Aussie family, and it was soooo hard leaving! I think all the security people gave me an easy time going through due to all the tears.

And that’s it. I hope I can go back some day. I know that what’s ahead will be good to, but it’s never the same, and Australia was amazing.